Now behold the great fortune.  If they might have come to their intents, they would have destroyed all the noblemen of England, and thereafter all other nations would have followed the same and have taken foot and ensample by them and by them of Gaunt and Flanders, who rebelled against their lord.  The same year the Parisians rebelled in like wise and found out the mallets of iron, of whom there were more than twenty thousand, as ye shall hear after in this history; but first we will speak of them of England.

When these people thus lodged at Rochester departed, and passed the river and came to Brentford, alway keeping still their opinions, beating down before them and all about the places and houses of advocates and procurers, and striking off the heads of divers persons.  And so long they went forward till they came within a four mile of London, and there lodged on a hill called Blackheath; and as they went, they said ever they were the king’s men and the noble commons of England:[1] and when they of London knew that they were come so near to them, the mayor, as ye have heard before, closed the gates and kept straitly all the passages.  This order caused the mayor, who was called Nicholas Walworth,[2] and divers other rich burgesses of the city, who were not of their sect; but there were in London of their unhappy opinions more than thirty thousand.

      [1] ’That they were for the king and the noble commons (or
      commonwealth) of England.’

      [2] Froissart calls him John:  his name was really William.

Then these people thus being lodged on Blackheath determined to send their knight to speak with the king and to shew him how all that they have done or will do is for him and his honour, and how the realm of England hath not been well governed a great space for the honour of the realm nor for the common profit by his uncles and by the clergy, and specially by the archbishop of Canterbury his chancellor; whereof they would have account.  This knight durst do none otherwise, but so came by the river of Thames to the Tower.  The king and they that were with him in the Tower, desiring to hear tidings, seeing this knight coming made him way, and was brought before the king into a chamber; and with the king was the princess his mother and his two brethren, the earl of Kent and the lord John Holland, the earl of Salisbury, the earl of Warwick, the earl of Oxford, the archbishop of Canterbury, the lord of Saint John’s,[3] sir Robert of Namur, the lord of Vertaing, the lord of Gommegnies, sir Henry of Senzeille, the mayor of London and divers other notable burgesses.  This knight sir John Newton, who was well known among them, for he was one of the king’s officers, he kneeled down before the king and said:  ’My right redoubted lord, let it not displease your grace the message that I must needs shew you, for, dear sir, it is by force and against my will.’  ‘Sir John,’ said the king, ‘say what ye will: